The 'Verse

Edit Locked

"The Verse" is usually referred to with a show or franchise identifier (such as "Buffyverse", "Whoniverse", etc.). It is a crafted combination of setting-elements that define the rules for how the world works and sometimes provides for sharing of characters and continuity across more than one series. A Shared Universe refers to a fictional universe with multiple authors.

In terms of how things work within the universe, the Buffyverse for example is set up by Mutant Enemy in such a way that Our Vampires Are Different in a (fairly) uniform fashion, and certain characters can move back and forth between shows and refer to events on the other show as if they are in the same world. Such things are often defined in the Universe Bible, the one true repository of canon. These bibles may be condensed to a Universe Compendium, or published as a Universe Concordance. Some universes, the shared variety especially, have a pretty strict and orderly Canon. Others, especially those with many authors, spread across different media and over a long period of time, go all over the place. Most of them reside somewhere in-between.

Advertisement:

It is interesting to note that Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction credits Orson Scott Card as the inventor of this term. He, however, says someone simply put the word Enderverse on a book jacket, and Card was credited for it. "The thing is, I hate that word. I didn't coin that word. And yet because it's on the title of a book of mine, my name is attached as if I made it up." It is more likely then that the Trope Namer is Firefly (See below for details). An earlier term coined by Robert A. Heinlein, ficton, has never gained much currency outside of Science Fiction circles; similarly, the related (but subtly different) term mythopoeia is mostly known to fans of J. R. R. Tolkien, who coined the term 1930s.

Advertisement:

One notable thing about the creation of Crossover verses is that it is usually easy to link two or more works which contain no Speculative Fiction elements or major departures from actual history, but doing so with Speculative Fiction works can be difficult because the settings are more likely to contradict each other. For instance, the characters from two Dom Coms, or two Westerns, or even a Dom Com and an action drama can typically all bump into each other with no logical problem. But to declare that, say, Star Trek and Babylon 5 exist in the same world is very awkward because both have detailed future histories, catalogs of nearby alien races, and rules about physical laws which bear little to no resemblance to each other. This can be a headache for s.f. franchises (Hi, DC!) who try to merge unrelated verses together into a single whole.

This page concerns the concept behind a single universe, where many franchises (or individual facets of one franchise) exist in the same reality. For a multitude of universes, realities and timelines; see The Multiverse.

Dragaera, the world on which Steven Brust sets the majority of his novels. The Khaavren Romances series takes place over about a thousand years (Dragaerans are very long-lived), with the Vlad Taltos series some 400 years after that. The placement of Brokedown Palace in the timeline is uncertain; unlike the two others, it takes place outside the Empire.

Nasuverse, the 'Verse of Kinoko Nasu, including Fate/stay night, Tsukihime, Kara no Kyoukai, their sequels, spinoffs and some other writings. Notable because it is a unified universe, but contains only the tiniest of crossovers between the main lines. Also a massive headache in terms of canon, since while the several main franchises share a common universe, the main works are multipath games that are inherently Alternate Universes... or something.

Star Wars Expanded Universe. Often referred to as the Galaxy Far, Far Away, or the GFFA for short. This was referenced in the Expanded Universe when a new government was named the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances (eventually the Galactic Alliance). This is the page for Star Wars new EU.

Super Sentai: Confirmed with Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger that all of the series take place in the same dimension, though despite this, many fans continue to insist that they're all somehow separate universes.

"Turn A Space" as a way of uniting all Gundam series preceding Gundam SEED into one continuity. Named after ∀ Gundam, which attempted to do this as a last hurrah for the franchise.

The name comes from the supposed original concept of ∀ Gundam, wherein creator Yoshiyuki Tomino intended to unite every anime he had created into a single universe; this is often used in lieu of the original nickname "Turn A Bang" (since Turn A was part of the "Gundam Big Bang Project" of 1999).

The "Turn A" in the title describes an inverted "A", the mathematical symbol meaning "For all", used in equations describing statements that apply to every member of a set.

When his later manga Biomega came out, it was widely believed to be an even earlier prequel, due to various similarities, including an organization known as Toha Heavy Industries appearing in both, but according to Word of God, Biomega has its own continuity.

The Naritaverse, for lack of a better term, entails the four light novels Baccano!, Vamp!, Etsusa Bridge, Hariyama-san, and Durarara!!, written by Ryougo Narita. There is only some overlapping here and there, though, and never enough to change plot lines.

Manta Aisora's verse, consisting of Haiyore! Nyarko-san, Miyamasanchi no Berutein and Valkyrie Works. Confirmation comes thanks to cameos both blatant and subtle (a radio show in Miyamasanchi no Berutein gets a write-in request from "Crawling Chaos", which is obviously meant to be Nyarko).

Not only do most if not all of Cool-kyou Shinsha's works take place in the same universe (well, Frau Rabbit technically takes place in another dimension), but most of them are implied to take place in the same town.

Minoru Kawakami created his own world, called "The Foundation World", in his light novels. A more in-depth explanation can be found translated here, but essentially, it consists of a large universe happening over thousands of years and divided into six specific eras during which the works take place centuries apart from each others: FORTH, AHEAD, EDGE, GENESIS, OBSTACLE and CITY. The official timelines goes:

FORTH: The world as it is now. Comprises novels 42 and 43.

AHEAD: The setting for The Ending Chronicle: after conquering ten parallel worlds, we must make their own Concepts part of our universe lest it be destroyed. Comprises novels 16-29.

EDGE: When mankind discovers space travel, and leaves the Earth That Was. The discovery of a fuel from AHEAD allows for further development.

OBSTACLE: The setting for Clash of Hexennacht. When the world rebuilds and destroys itself. Comprises an online card game and a light novel/manga series currently in production.

CITY: The setting for the CITY Series. When all the technologies developed from OBSTACLE come together, and, after the world was recreated countless times, a world that would not be destroyed is created. Comprises novels 1-15.

Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump exist in the same universe, with Arale and Senbei having made several guest appearances on Dragon Ball while Goku has had a few cameos on Dr. Slump. Arguably Nekomajin, another work by Akira Toriyama also exists somewhere in the Dragon Ball universe, since one of the characters claims to have been trained by Goku and featured a saiyan named Onio.

There's also Jaco The Galactic Patrol Man, which is revealed in the end to be a prequel to Dragon Ball, in which the title character is sent to find a dangerous threat to Earth, which turns out to be an infant Goku. Bulma's sister is a main character, and both she and Jaco make appearances in Dragon Ball Super; in fact, Jaco is something of a recurring character.

Odd as it might sound, Yaoi authors actually enjoy this trope and many have their own. NakamuraShunguku is particularly known for having two popular works of the genre that often make clear that are happening on the same universe, with characters of both making cameos on the other, and even a shared setting, as both stories focus on people that work on the same publishing company.

Nekota Yonezou has a much more subtle one, with only three of her many works sharing an universe, Hidoku Shinaide, Elektel Delusion and Otona Keikenchi, mostly, there a few extra chapter crossover that shows a few characters know each other from different mangas.

Hidaka Shoko has one in the form of a nigh-anthology of her works Signal, Arashi No Ato and Hatsukoi No Atosaki. Each one is considered a sequel to the previous one, in which a side character of the work before becomes the main character for the following one, but the events of other works are hardly central in any form.

Comic Books

Image Comics originally tried doing that. The first few issues of their early titles had Continuity Nods to other titles, and there were a few outright crossovers. But as time went on, every Image partner focused on their own titles, creating de-facto sub-universes that had less and less to do with each other. Marc Silvestri's and Jim Lee's titles maintained their connections longer then others, but eventually, even that feel by the wayside. In 1997, Wildstorm Universe, Top Cow Universe and Rob Lielfeld's Extreme Universe were written out of Image Universe via what can be best described as Reverse-Crisis on Infinite Earths in the Shattered Image mini-series (not to be confused with the more tongue-in-cheek Splitting Image mini-series). Since then, there have been a number of Image crossovers, but each creator was free to decide just how much that counts in their continuity.

The Kirkmanverse contains of Invincible, Invincible Presents: Atom Eve and Rex Splode, Astounding Wolf-Man, The Pact, Guarding the Globe, Brit, Capes, Tech-Jacket, Haunt, Superpatriot: America's Fighting Force, and Superpatriot: War On Terror. Pretty big for a fictional universe written by one guy.

The Motterverse: Consists of Mr. X, Electropolis and Terminal City, all created by Dean Motter.

Corey Lewis's one-shot graphic novel PENG takes place in the same universe as Lewis's graphic novel series Sharknife. Rocky Hallelujah, the main character of PENG, is the younger brother of Sharknife's protagonist Caesar Hallelujah. Additionally, Scott Pilgrim makes a one-page cameo in PENG, so if you really want to, you could consider that series as part of the same universe as well.

The Dreddverse consists of Judge Dredd and its various spinoffs, primarily Judge Anderson, Low Life, Armitage, Shimura, and The Blood of Satanus. Strontium Dog was shoved in sideways in "Top Dog" and "Judgement Day". Nobody's sure whether the Millsverse is part of it. Harlem Heroes is also part of the Dreddverse, at least in Broad Strokes, since Judge Giant is the grandson of Aeroball star John "Giant" Clay.

Chimaera Studios' superhero comics always took place in a shared universe, but it wasn't obvious aside from a few cameos/references until Chimaera Studios released its first team book, Consortium of Justice and used to connect a few other titles.

Fables is a surprisingly very large and expanded universe not created by a major company. It includes the main series Fables, Peter and Max: A Fables Novel, Jack of Fables, The Literals, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, Fables: The Last Castle, Cinderella: Fables are Forever, Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love, Fairest, and a Telltale Games series that is confirmed to be canon.

And coming from one of the authors of the Lunaverse is The Cadanceverse, another Shared Universe, where both Celestia and Luna went insane and had to be sealed by Cadance, and the Elements of Harmony end up going to five minor and background characters and Fluttershynote Although she isn't assigned the Element she has in the Maneverse (canon universe).

The Reading Rainbowverse is a series of independently maintained blogs set in the same verse as Rainbow Dash Reads Homestuck. There is a very strong sense of continuity and interaction, with all the blogs commenting on each other's shenanigans. It even deals with Tumblr as a whole by referring to it as the multiverse, interacting with out of verse blogs as though they were alien visitors....

Life in Manehattan is, like the Lunaverse and the Cadanceverse above, a Shared Universe of MLP fics set in an Alternate Universe, one where the events of the pilot episodes took place in Manehattan rather than Ponyville. As such, Twilight instead ends up befriending and having adventures with several secondary, minor, and background characters.

Eduard Kassel has taken a different approach to this trope, by stating that all of his stories are set, not in the same universe, but in the same multiverse. They're usually tied loosely together by cameos from or mentions of common elements — such as the Stranger, the Endless Council, and the threat of Omega — but even those that don't have those are still stated by Word of God to be in the same multiverse as the others.

Weiss Reacts is set in one of these, called the Reactsverse, sharing a world with other oneshots by the author and a sister fic, The Diary of Glynda Goodwitch. It also shares a multiverse with Lucina Reacts by the same author, focusing on Fire Emblem Awakening.

"The United Pony of Goodness Universe" (or "TUPGverse" for short), on which most of JusSonic's stories take place. It also includes Past Sins and most of its verse.

The Blooming Moon Chronicles, by Black.Rose.Raven, an MLP fanfiction series that draws heavy inspiration from Norse Mythology. Along with its sequel series, Songs Of Lost Children, it contains 15 books and at least a dozen side-stories, mostly written by Black.Rose.Raven himself.

Pokémon Reset Bloodlines by Crossoverpairinglover started as a Pokemon AU fic that has expanded into a growing shared universe centered by the titular fic with numerous one shot spin offs and side stories.

Child of the Storm is the first story in a vast universe which so far consists of that first completed book, an ongoing second one, and one short side-story. According to the author, there's plenty more to come.

Ever since the premiere of Iron Man in 2008, the "MCU" has been steadily expanding into one of the all-time biggest media franchises, with over twenty films and counting, multiple TV shows, several web mini-series, loads of tie-in material and Merch like nobody's business... and as of 2018, it shows no signs of stopping or even slowing down.

Moreover, it basically codified the idea that movies with wildly varying tones could not only share a universe, but have characters regularly crossing over and meeting each other.

Over the years, Quentin Tarantino's movies have developed into two relatively coherent 'Verses - the first being the main "Tarantino-verse" which turns out to be an Alternate History where the Basterds killed Hitler in '44 and the second the films within that verse. It also seems be linked to his friend Robert Rodriguez' world too, and include some of his favourite older movies.

It's also worth noting that Predator and Alien were never meant to be in the same universe, Alien vs. Predator was mainly created as a cash-in on two popular franchises.

But it's worth mentioning that the whole idea of fusing these two franchises was born due to an Easter Egg at the ending of Predator 2 , where you could see the Predator's wall of fame on their ship, with various skulls, including a xenomorph's.

And as the Weyland Yutani company exists in both the Star Trek Online videogame and the Angel and Firefly TV shows (see the Live Action Television section) made of that what you will. An interesting fact is that an episode of Star Trek: Voyager has a (deliberately) very similar looking species (but benevolent) to the Predator aliens named the Kradin.

Plans for a third movie featuring Pinehead from the Hellraiser franchise were in place during production as they all belong to the same company at the time and even were talks about adding a small cameo of Pinehead in a post-credit scene (although it was later replaced by Jason holding Fredy's head as they both came out of the water).

John Hughes: When I started making movies, I thought I would just invent a town where everything happened. Everybody, in all of my movies, is from Shermer, Illinois. Del Griffith from Planes, Trains and Automobiles lives two doors down from John Bender. Ferris Bueller knew Samantha Baker from Sixteen Candles. For 15 years I've written my Shermer stories in prose, collecting its history.

It's long been speculated that Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, and Home Alone also take place in the Shermerverse, since those movies were written (but not directed) by Hughes and feature similar themes. Adding on to that, there is mixed evidence that Uncle Buck and Curly Sue (both directed by Hughes) might take place in the Shermerverse, but this hasn't been confirmed.

Weird Science explicitly takes place in Shermer (Lisa is seen teaching the Shermer High gym class at the end), though it has its own Speculative Fiction internal logic that is inconsistent with the other canon Shermerverse movies. Hughes' 1988 movie She's Having A Baby does NOT take place in the Shermerverse, since Neal Page's wife is seen watching that movie on television in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

Most Jacques Demy films are interconnected. In Model Shop (1969), Lola's story of being a nightclub singer in France and meeting an American sailor is the plot of 1961 film Lola; Anouk Aimee plays the character of Lola in both movies. She says her husband left her for a lady gambler named Jackie Lemaistre; the character of Jackie Lemaistre is the protagonist of 1962 Demy film Bay of Angels. Lola also features as Lola's boyfriend a character named Roland played by Marc Michel; Michel plays the same character in 1964 Demy film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

The one official is the Cloverfieldverse, which all started when the self-contain movie originally call The Cellar was retooled by Abrams and called 10 Cloverfield Lane for publicity purposes although the link between the two movies on camera is thin to say the least (the expanded universe connects the two worlds more thoughtfully). Then it came the turn for "God's Particle", a sci-fi movie for Netflix which was also retooled to be part of the same universe and renamed The Cloverfield Paradox, in this case the connections were made much more obvious and explicit. This, however, caused a certain backlash from critics which caused the idea to be dropped. In fact Overlord (2018) was rumored to be branded "Cloverfield 4" but this was eventually abandoned due to Paradox's backlash. Currently a four Cloverfield movie as a direct (and this time planned) sequel from the first is in talks.

Some fans also consider Star Trek (2009) and its sequels and Super 8 to be in the same Abramsverse due to the drink Slusho mentioned on them, which also exists in Alias and Fringe from the same creator arguably placing the Star Trek franchise (at least the Kelvin line), Super 8, Alias, Fringe and the Cloverfield movies in the same universe.

Robert A. Heinlein had The Future History, a chronology spanning from the 1950s to many centuries into the future. It was written from 1939 to 1987, meaning parts of it were Alternate History by the end. It turned into a multiverse (The World As Myth 'Verse) near the end, with a set of crossovers that brought some of his non-Future History stories into The Verse. (Not to mention crossovers with the Oz series, Alice in Wonderland, and all fiction ever written. It got weird.)

The P. G. Wodehouse verse in which the gentlemen of the Jeeves and Wooster, Blandings Castle and Psmith series know each other, often through the Drones Club. Specific links include Leave It to Psmith, in which Psmith and Freddie Threepwood team up for a Zany Scheme at Blandings Castle; and The Code of the Woosters, in which Bertie Wooster mentions Freddie as one of his acquaintences. There's even a connection to his earlier school stories — in "The Ordeal of Young Tuppy", Tuppy Glossop is revealed to have attended St Austin's, the setting of The Pothunters and Tales of St Austin's.

The Known Space is also offically part of the Star Trek universe now that the Star Trek: The Animated Series was upgraded to canon as the Kzinti make an appearence in one of the episodes. In fact the Expanded Universe even went further by making the already canonical Caitans into distant relatives of the Kzinti (like an inverted version of the Vulcan-Romulan relationship) and the cat lady in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was referred as a "Kzinrrett" (Niven's term for female Kzinti) tho never on camera.

Niven and co-author Steven Barnes have created at least one distinct Verse together, that of Cowles Industries' Dream Park. The Descent of Anansi is set there, along with the Dream Park novels and a role-playing game.

Tortall, home to (so far) Song of the Lioness, The Immortals, Protector of the Small, Daughter of the Lioness, and Provost's Dog quartet/quartet/quartet/duology/trilogy.

The Circle Universe, home to Circle of Magic, The Circle Opens, and Will of the Empress quartet/quartet/book. Ole' Tammy likes her quartets, she does.

There's evidence in the first book of the first Circle Of Magic quartet that Tortall and The Circle Universe are connected—just a few hundred years apart from the events in each.

Belgariad Universe, home to The Belgariad, The Malloreon, Belgarath the Sorcerer, and Polgara the Sorceress.

Elenium/Tamuli universe, home to (surprise, surprise) The Elenium and The Tamuli.

The Dreamers Universe, home to God-knows-what.

Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian and Kull series take place in the same 'verse, with Conan's Hyborian Age forming after the great cataclysm that destroyed Kull's Atlantis. Kull has a guest appearance in the Bran Mak Morn story "Kings of the Night," linking it to Howard's historical stories. In addition, his modern day Conrad and Kirowan horror stories are linked, as Thoth-Amon's Ring of Set makes an appearance in "The Haunter of the Ring." It's arguable that all of Howard's stories occupy the same 'verse.

While the Cthulhu Mythos is generally defined as an Expanded Universe, the "mythos proper", the elements that H.P. Lovecraft himself wrote about (usually set in Lovecraft Country), constitute a 'verse within the 'verse. Other writers have their own 'cycles' within it. Lovecraft himself never much cared about continuity or consistency, and deliberately sought to invoke the feeling of ancient mythology with his mutually inconsistent explanations — if mythology from thousands of years ago is a mess open to a wide variety of interpretations, then how would mythology several billion years old develop?

Since Lovecraft, Howard and some other writers regularily used elements from each others stories, this would make the Cthulhu Mythos, Conan/Kull universe and several others one Shared Universe.

All of Christopher Moore's novels take place within the same universe, with locations and characters (both major and minor) taking on new, often very different roles in other books. This reached a peak during You Suck (itself a sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends), where a scene from A Dirty Job was retold from a different point of view. This is also the first time where a crossover with one of Moore's earlier novels doesn't make sense unless you read the book in question.

Bret Easton Ellis's novels. The narrator of Less Than Zero (Clay) appears in The Rules of Attraction, and narrates one chapter. One of the narrators of The Rules of Attraction (Sean Bateman) appears in American Psycho. The narrator of American Psycho (Patrick Bateman) appears in Glamorama, whose narrator, Victor, is a minor character in The Rules of Attraction. Characters from Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, and American Psycho also appear in the short story collection The Informers.

Jim Butcher's urban fantasy series of books, The Dresden Files, is commonly referred to by fans as the Dresdenverse. So is the TV series of the same name (also referred to as "TV-verse"). Incorporating elements from both the books and the TV series in fanfic is referred to as "comboverse." It turned into an Ascended Meme in the tabletop RPG. Considering the Breaking the Fourth Wall and Literary Agent Hypothesis stuff going on with the RPG rulebooks, this means one of the characters is referring to his own universe that way, which the titular Harry Dresden finds really weird.

Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga is also referred to as the Vorkosiverse.

Many of the fiction works of Andrew Greeley — including but possibly not limited to the Bishop Blackie, Nuala Anne McGrail and Angel books, plus The God Game — appear to all take place in the same shared universe.

Several of Sinclair Lewis's novels take place in the fictional state of Winnemac (surrounded by Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana).

The Alternate History1632 by Eric Flint is often referred to as the 1632-verse, or the Ring Of Fire-verse, to distinguish it from the author's other alternate history series (including the Trail of Glory series).

Earthsea, a fantasy world that is the setting for The Earthsea Trilogy (A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore), as well as Tehanu, The Other Wind, Tales from Earthsea and the short stories which introduced Earthsea, The Rule of Names and The Word of Unbinding.

Brandon Sanderson: Most of the author's adult fantasy (with a few exceptions, such as the three Wheel of Time books he's published on behalf of the deceased Robert Jordan), take place on different worlds in the same universe, known as The Cosmere. This is not made clear in the books themselves (although several contain hints) but is information provided by Word of God.

Daniel Handler has said he intends to write more books about the ASOUE universe, not about the Baudelaires.

David Mitchell's books are noted for their interconnectivity. This is true within single stories (the wondering soul in one of Ghostwritten's narratives, whose travels take it full-circle); within single novels (Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas which are both made up of several independent but connected stories), and between novels (and other works). For example, a character from the Frobisher narrative in Cloud Atlas features prominently in Black Swan Green. A minor character from Marco's narrative in Ghostwritten starts his story by waking up to a woman whose birthmark marks her as an iteration of the 'soul' that links all of the narratives in Cloud Atlas. The list goes on and on. Even in Mitchell's latest book, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which was seen as a departure from his previous meta/post-modernist fiction into fairly 'straight' historical drama, there is at least one very subtle connection to his earlier book Number 9 Dream: the minor character Satsuki Miyake comes from Yakushima, hinting that she is the ancestor of Eiji Miyake, protagonist of the earlier work, who also hails from the tiny island. Insofar as Mitchell is writing about the 'real world', past or contemporary, this Verse is quite close to our own. However, Mitchell is also notable for writing science fiction elements into his books. If, as seems to be the case, all Mitchell's works are taking place in the same Verse, we are left to try and reconcile the end of Ghostwritten (which implies the self-aware super-computer created by the nice Irish scientist has decided to annihilate mankind) with the future-set episodes of Cloud Atlas (in the first instance a Soylent-Green-referencing consumerist dystopia; in the second instance a far-future-set 'last days of humanity'). The possibilities are fascinating...

The Bone Clocks goes even further and connects almost all of his previous novels and fleshes out the entire multiverse. In particular, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet is directly connected with Dr. Marinus revealed as an Eternal Hero and Enomoto's immortality cult as legitimate magic. The future setting of Cloud Atlas and some background on the Prescients are also tied into it.

Warrior Cats: The main series is fairly straightforward, but the Expanded Universe books are made up of several "sagas" that cover completely different parts of the world with a handful of intersecting characters.

A good portion of John Buchan's books (including The Thirty-Nine Steps) are set in the same continuity, and many of his series shared supporting characters.

Rick Riordan, the writer of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Kane Chronicles, The Heroes of Olympus, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, and The Trials of Apollo, has each of them set in the same universe. While one is a sequel to the first, The Kane Chronicles's Egyptian gods contrast with Percy's Greek gods. Also, in a short story, the main characters from both series met and fought Egyptian/Greek baddies together, with the Magnus Chase's series being even more closely related than The Kane Chronicles, as the titular character is the cousin of Annabeth Chase, one of the main characters from Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus. Fans often refer to these books as the 'Riordanverse'.

Deltora, the setting of the three Deltora Quest series, and various spinoffs such as The Deltora Book of Monsters.

All (Colin) Bateman's books take place in the same universe. Dan Starkey, the Anti-Hero of one particular series has been mentioned in the Mystery Man series and makes an appearance in the once-off novel I Predict a Riot.

Cassandra Clares The Shadowhunter Chronicles consists of the original The Mortal Instruments series, prequel trilogy The Infernal Devices, sequel trilogy The Dark Artifices, The Last Hours (sequel trilogy to The Infernal Devices), The Wicked Powers (sequel trilogy to The Dark Artifices), The Eldest Curses (spin-off trilogy focused on one character), and two collections of short stories, all taking place in the Shadowhunter world.

Michael Connelly has been writing mystery novels more or less annually since 1992 and they all take place in the same universe. About 2/3 of them feature the same detective, Harry Bosch, but even the ones that don't tie in to the Bosch universe. The hero in Chasing the Dime suffered a childhood trauma when his sister was murdered by a Serial Killer who was eventually killed by...Harry Bosch. The heroine of Void Moon later has a cameo in a Bosch novel.

Originally, it was believed that each season of American Horror Story was its own 'verse, but season four confirmed that they are not.

The Firefly 'verse (series and movie Serenity). (Notable for the fact that the characters refer to their own universe as "the 'Verse"). The terms "Jossverse", "Whedonverse" and "ME-verse" (ME = Mutant Enemy, Joss Whedon's production company) have been used to refer to both this and the Buffyverse; while there is no connection between the two in canon, it's a Common Crossover for fans due to the similar styles of both.

Although Joss was once said that he'd have Spike, sitting at a bar, saying: "Nothing changes"

In addition to the abovementioned fan nicknames, the Firefly 'Verse is often referred to simply as the 'Verse by fans of the series, as well as characters within it.

Eventually it becomes a snowball effect. One doctor from St. Elsewhere showed up years later on Homicide, and then another doctor from St. Elsewhere showed up in the Homicide movie. Carla, Norm, and Cliff from Cheers appeared on an episode of St. Elsewhere. Frasier and Lilith from Cheers and Frasier also appeared on Wings.

Chicago P.D. and Chicago Fire are also now included in this universe, with two separate three-part crossovers with SVU. This by itself constitutes its own 'verse, with new additions Chicago Med and Chicago Justice.

Speaking of St. Elsewhere, this trope is taken to its logical conclusion by the Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis, which looks at all of the shows that St. Elsewhere had crossovers with, all the shows that those shows had crossovers with, the shows spun off from those shows, shows that homaged shows in the Tommy Westphall Universe in such a way that connections could be drawn, and so on in order to claim that a large swath of modern television exists in the same universe... and since St. Elsewhere famously ended with an All Just a DreamGainax Ending, the hypothesis goes on to claim that all of these shows are products of the imagination of an autistic boy. The idea was created by Dwayne McDuffie in 2002, ironically as a tongue-in-cheek criticism of how seriously fans of comic books take continuity; he argued that, if one took continuity in television as seriously as it's taken in comics, it can lead to ridiculous extremes. Of course, it took on a life of his own after he created it.

The X-Files, Millennium, and The Lone Gunmen all exist in the same universe. The first and last are the most obvious, with the Lone Gunmen being an X-Files spin-off, though characters go back and forth between all three series and there is at least one cross-over episode.

Also in episode "Milagro" of The X-Files the gravestones of Nicholas and Diana Salinger can be seen in a cementery. Those are the parents of the siblings in Party of Five situating them in the same universe.

All of the original dramas on the USA Network, at least in the various commercials.

J. J. Abrams' "Abramsverse", for the lack of a better word, has so far been shown to be one of the most expansive verses on television. Shows which are more or less found in this verse are Alias, Lost, Fringe, Person of Interest. Common things found throughout most of these: the Slusho beverage brand, Apollo candy bars, the Dharma Initiative, Oceanic Airlines, Massive Dynamic, the band Drive Shaft (which Charlie from Lost was a member of), and some very mild character references and crossovers. Some of his movies are non-canonically connected by some Fanon there as well (see film section).

Fringe also happens in the same universe as Twin Peaks as Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, Laura Palmer's former psychiatrist, is mentioned to be an old friend of Walter Bishop and gave him his glasses. If Fringe is part of a major Abramsverse as is the common believe then Twin Peaks is also part of the Abramsverse.

Cory in the House - A spinoff of That's So Raven, with a few characters from said show (including Raven herself) making guest appearances. Has a crossover with Hannah Montana in the episode, "Take This Job and Love It", the second crossover.

The Suite Life on Deck - A spinoff of The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody, in which a number of characters from said show make guest appearances and, like its parent show, forms the centerpiece of Wizards On Deck with Hannah Montana, the third crossover.

Hannah Montana - Forms the last piece of both That's SoSuite Life of Hannah Montana and Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana.

I'm in the Band - Has a crossover with The Suite Life on Deck in the episode, Weasels on Deck, the fourth crossover.note I'm In The Band stands out among the live action Disney shows as it is the only one not in the Disney Channel lineup (instead being part of Disney XD's lineup), as well as the only one to be filmed in High-Definition from the beginning (The Suite Life on Deck, Wizards of Waverly Place, and Hannah Montana switched from Standard-Definition to High-Definition in Seasons 2, 3, and 4 respectively).

Jessie - Has a crossover with Austin & Ally in the hour long special Austin & Jessie & Ally All Star New Year. Later on it has a crossover with Good Luck Charlie in another hour long special Good Luck Jessie: NYC Christmas''.

And speaking of CBS, The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres were established to exist in the same universe. The latter two were even in the same town, although interaction between the casts was limited to general store owner Mr. Drucker (a regular on both series) and the occasional cameo.

The Office and Parks and Recreation were intended to be set in one universe, but this idea was dropped. The original UK version of The Office is still part of the same universe, though, judging by Ricky Gervais's cameo as David Brent.

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger vs. Space Sheriff Gavan: The Movie mentions the Dekarangers clearing the Gokaiger of piracy thus a Space Sheriff of the Space Police should not arrest them. Weaval Director General of the Space Police wears a cap with an emblem of the Galactic Union Police and wears a SPD commander buckle.

Ultra Series has quite a few 'verses. There's the main Showa verse - often called the Nebula M78 verse, which is where all the Showa series takes place as well as Ultraman Mebius and possibly Ultraman Geed (according to Word of God), and many of the movies. Other shows have their own continuity but many characters are shared from 'verse to 'verse and cross-overs in movies are pretty frequent.

Cheers, The Torlellis, Wings, and Frasier all share the same universe. the first, second, and last are the most obvious as The Tortellis and Frasier are both spin-offs of Cheers

It is established early on that Mad About You and Friends share the same universe. Due to Crossovers, the universe also includes Caroline in the City, and The Single Guy. Seinfeld is in the same universe too, as Kramer makes a cameo once in Mad About You as apparently he is sub-renting Paul's old bachelor's apartment. Paul even ask him if the guy next door is still a comedian.

What can be call the "Bellisarioverse" is linked when Sam Beckett of Quantum Leap mentions to Al that his sister is married to Jim Bonnick, a naval officer who appears in Bellisario's Magnum, P.I. and also in Hawaii Five-O, Murder, She Wrote and Simon & Simon placing them all the same universe. Also in Sliders Captain Maggie Becket mentiones that she has an uncle named Sam.

The Yoyodyne aerospace contractor is mentioned as one of the client companies of Angel's Wolfram & Hart, but also is mentioned in Star Trek as the manufacturer on some of the Federation's ships, but also as the company behind the buses in The John Larroquette Show which would place the Buffyverse, Trek Verse and the John Larroquette verse in the same reality.

Another connection is the Weyland-Yutani Corporation of Alien fame, as the corporation is mentioned to be a client of Wolfram & Hard too, appears mentioned in Firefly's pilot episode and is also mentioned as existing in the Federation in the Star Trek Online videogame.

The music videos for the K-PopGirl GroupLOONA are all connected within a universe called the Loonaverse, telling a story featuring all the members. It seems to involve at least three different worlds, one being very similar to Earth (where YeoJin and the LOONA 1/3 girls live), a world named Eden (from where the LOONA/yyxy girls try to escape) and some sort of boundary dimension between both worlds (where the LOONA/ODD EYE CIRCLE girls are).

Pro Wrestling

Comisión de Box y Lucha Libre Mexico D.F created and sanctions the Mexican National Wrestling Championship Title Belts, most famously but not exclusively defended in CMLL. CMLL was also a member of the National Wrestling Alliance and created 'NWA Historic' title belts after leaving to retain that NWA history. It remained the biggest affiliate of the World Wrestling League in Mexico even when WWL established it's own Mexican headquarters. It runs joint events with New Japan Pro-Wrestling and has joint titles with REINA.

The World Women's Wrestling Association, The American Girls' Wrestling Association, All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling and Stampeded Wrestling in Canada all recognized one another. In addition, Stampede also had the IWA Women's title.

Dragon Gate USA, EVOLVE, Full Impact Pro, and SHINE. This isn't the first time Gabe Sapolsky put the promotions he books inside the same universe; he did it with Ring of Honor and Full Impact Pro (until ROH broke off from the WWN in 2009).

Chikara Pro and its "Wrestling Is" derivatives. (Wrestling Is Fun, Wrestling Is Art, ect). Briefly had a Kiyuko Pro but it did not last and recognized Kaiju Big Battel, which did last but rarely crosses over with Chikara anymore.

Tabletop Games

Dungeons & Dragons features not just multiple universes (called Campaign Settings) but multiple cosmologies tying them together; still, the potential for crossover is there (In one of the video games, for example, a group of knights from Dragonlance end up trapped in the Forgotten Realms, while numerous references to the Planescape setting are made.

In fact, part of Planescape's purpose seems to be not just to allow such crossovers, but to say that stranger things can and indeed do happen every day on the planes.)

The Spelljammer setting had characters from one world travelling to others in "spaceships."

Ravenloft had characters from different settings finding themselves in its D&D world.

The Rifts Megaverse is a collection of universes consisting of Rifts' Earth, The living planet known as Wormwood, the Space Opera Three Galaxies universe, as well as Earths for each of Palladium's other games, such as the Palladium World (High Fantasy), Heroes Unlimited (Superheroes), and Nightbane.

The Third Imperium background to the science-fiction role-playing game Traveller.

In the Old World of Darkness, all the gamelines theoretically take place in the same universes, occasionally making references to monsters and concepts in other game lines within the verse. This is also true in the New World of Darkness, but is given less emphasis between gamelines.

The laws of physics and various cultures depicted in the Myst games and books is often called the D'niverse (pronounced done-ni-verse) after the most prominent race in the storyline. Technically, it's actually a multiverse, connecting smaller universes called Ages...

These examples haven't even touched on things like Gilgamesh of Final Fantasy V being a dimensional traveler.

These examples (and many others) were later quantified as many universes all being connected to one another in Dissidia: Final Fantasy, all thanks to a dimensional bridge that called the Interdimensional Rift, first introduced in Final Fantasy V.

Oddly enough, a subversion, inversion, or straight play in a video game, depending on who you ask: Aquaria. In fact, whether or not the Verse is the world around the main character eventually plays something of a major point in the plot. Not really a fandom trope, so much as a nice twist of words, though sooner or later there's bound to be Fan Fic...

Nippon Ichi's games such as Disgaea all take place in one Universe, one that you actually explore and learn more about in Makai Kingdom and also includes non-demon worlds such as the one seen in La Pucelle.

The main Pokémon games take place in different regions of the same world. This becomes obvious with the presence of two regions in Gold, Silver, and Crystal and references to regions of past games in later games. All of the first four generations are actually in different regions of the same country, the equivalent of Japan in that universe. Starting from Pokémon Black and White with the debut of the Unova region, the series moves to a different country, apparently based on the United States of America.

The Super Smash Bros.. Universe includes all the Nintendo series as fictional video games, and is in some way related to the Real Life Universe through Master Hand (possibly Crazy Hand as well).

Virtually every series made by Nippon ichi falls into two distinct verses: The world of Atelier, and the Netherworlds, which are a combination of Marl kingdom, La Pucelle, Disgaea, Phantom Brave, Makai Kingdom, Soul Nomad, and several others that were not even known to be in correlation including a few cancelled videogames with characters who cross into other games. Not only are these games taking place within the same universe, but most characters find it perfectly natural for everyone to just randomly go to and fro between series as either cameo shots, secondary characters, or main characters, and often reference these fourth wall breaking aspects regularly. One character in particular, Overlord Baal, frequently makes his appearance as the Bonus Boss of any Nippon Ichi game involving a netherworld, and everyone knows who he is.

Take On Helicopters has some crossover with ARMA II : Operation Arrowhead (the standalone expansion for ARMA II), in the form of one of the main characters having been a combat pilot during the events of Operation Arrowhead, along with appearances by the PMCs Vrana and ION from one of OAs DLC campaigns.

Atlus confirmed in this interview that the Persona games all take place in the same world, though the only things consistent throughout all of the entries (apart from the titular Personas) are Igor, the Velvet Room, and Philemon's butterfly form. Several characters and plot elements from the original Persona show up in Persona 2, and Persona 4: Arena and its sequel Ultimax are nearly as much sequels to Persona 3 as they are to Persona 4, but the connections between the games are otherwise kept fairly low-key and incidental (aside from Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, which the casts involved end up forgetting about anyways). Persona 5 meanwhile references various characters from the previous games through tv shows, ads and the occasional NPC conversation.

While at first, Sierra On-Line'sLaura Bow and Gabriel Knight series have similar elements, with both being detectives from Tulane University, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it flyer on a message board in Gabriel Knight links the two series together, as an elderly Laura is giving a lecture on investigative journalism at a future date. It's actually quite a shame the two never get a chance to meet up.

Christine Love's visual novels are all subtly linked by the existence of Amie Computers, Lake City, the Rook and Yamazaki families, and AIs with names that start with asterisks. There are some other continuity nods, but those are the main ones.

All of Homestuck, and possibly the rest of MSPA, takes place in what is known as Paradox Space.

The Wotchiverse, setting for the Web ComicThe Wotch and its various derivatives (Cheer!, Triquetra Cats, and possibly Abstract Gender). It is also shown to share continuity with webcomics with different authors (Accidental Centaurs and possibly more).

Not to forget secondary Spin Offs such as Murder She Writes, THAT, Giant Days and New Bobbins. Read all about the "Bobbinsverse" here.

The Narbonverse: Narbonic, Li'l Mell, and (confirmed by Artie's appearance in "If I Ran The Zoo") Skin Horse. Smithson is in there as well, due to the appearance of an older version of Homeschool Joe from Li'l Mell. North of Space, Shaenon's high school strip, and The Ratio, her college strip, featured Mell and Dave respectively.

MegaTokyo, Mac Hall, and Applegeeks apparently inhabit the same universe, as crossovers have happened several times. This is especially apparent with Megatokyo and Applegeeks, where regular characters Junpei and a Rent-a-Zilla from Megatokyo played a major role in a story arc in Applegeeks. Sadly, only Megatokyo remains of the three as of 2012.

Technically, Three Panel Soul might count as well, since it is a continuation of the now closed Mac Hall. Dom from Megatokyo is even a regular character.

To Prevent World Peace is a webcomic that tries to merge basically every single magical girl cliche into a single, unified Verse. With Genre Savvy villains in the mix, naturally.

Sonic for Hire and Mega Man Dies At The End are in the same universe starting with the Mega Man Dies at the End episode On the Lam which shows Sonic trying to escape from the prison Mega Man busts Wily out of. This is confirmed even more when a Sonic for Hire episode has Mega Man appear and has him mentioning events from the last crossover as well as leading directly into the next Mega Man Dies At The End episode.

Heroes Unite: The shared superhero universe on The Duck containing Webcomic/Energize and Webcomic/Bombshell amongst others is called the HUniverse (though this term has yet to actually appear in-setting).

Two famous Easter Eggs show cameos of characters making appearances in other films. Scar's skin from The Lion King, for example, makes a split-second cameo in Hercules while Belle from Beauty and the Beast can be seen walking down the street in one scene of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Of course in the case of Scar this would contradict canon as Scar dies eaten by hyenas at the end of the movie, thus the skin seen in Hercules couldn't be his or at least not be that intact and in The Hunchback of Notre Dame France is normally run by the monarchy whilst in Beauty and the Beast the Prince was magically cursed into looking like a Beast, which would be hard to reconcile.

The Pixar Theory is a popular fan theory that suggests that every single Pixar film is set in the same universe, officially aside from obvious cases of sequels and prequels is not the case.

Certain episodes of Family Guy and The Cleveland Show indicate The Simpsons is part of it as well. And if that is the case, The Critic and Futurama may be too, however at least on the case of The Simpsons the crossover episodes are not considered officially canon, also The Simpsons exists as a TV show in Futurama and vice versa both credited in their respective universes to Matt Groening. The existence of a multiverse (whether a Groeningverse or a Fox Animated Universe) caused whether by Homer's time travel in one of the Treehouse of Horror episodes or by one of the many time travels that happened in Futurama has been proposed by some fans to explain the apparent inconsistencies.

It's possible 2 Stupid Dogs also take place in this universe, due to the presence of the cute little kitten and the mannequinnote from the episode "Canned" in Dexter's Laboratory and the main characters appearing in Samurai Jack.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy